It’s a rainy Wednesday afternoon in London and, on the 28th floor of the Hilton on Park Lane, the restaurant Galvin at Windows is starting to fill up. Outside, views of the capital under a grey sky stretch far into the distance; inside, the atmosphere is warm and inviting.

“Those two men – ask them what they would like to drink,” instructs Fred Sirieix, the general manager at Galvin. I approach the table nervously and take their order – then have to scamper back: I had forgotten the bowl of complimentary nuts. “The bottle on the table by the window looks empty – go and ask them if they would like another.” Off I go.

Slowly, the place gets busier and I am sent to the kitchen to fetch an order for table one. The huge silver tray with the two large plates is heavy but the challenge is to stand as if it weighs nothing at all. Later still, the coffee machine in the kitchen hisses and spits as espresso after espresso is churned out. There are about 50 people for lunch today but nothing gets hectic. The waiting staff are polite and smiling, the sommelier glides in at just the right moment and Siriex keeps everything under his eagle eye.

I am spending the day at Galvin at Windows to learn what it is like to work “front of house”. Thanks to Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay, we all know something of the pressures of a kitchen but what about the people who greet you at these establishments – the ones who take your order, serve your food?

In Britain, the hospitality trade is not always taken seriously as a career, even though it is our fifth-biggest industry and employs more than 2m people.

Sirieix said: “There’s this perception that working front of house is really low down the pecking order.”

Geoff Booth, director of the school of hospitality at Westminster Kingsway College, London, said that “nothing could be further from the truth”. In fact, the career path in this particular industry is fairly well assured and the opportunities are vast. “Marketing, HR, costing, finance – they are all jobs within the hospitality industry,” he said. “It is an employment field that allows you to keep chopping and changing your skill set. It’s challenging but incredibly rewarding.”

So what do you need to suc-ceed? Olivia Mathe started her career in hotel management when she was 18, taking casual work while reading economics at the Sorbonne and, later, at hotel school. She worked front of house at the George V hotel in Paris and then, six years ago, set up her own hotel, the Hôtel de Toiras, on the Ile de Ré. Now she is aiming for one of the French tourist ministry’s new five-star ratings. “To have a hotel is the dream of everyone who works in the industry,” says Mathe, 34. “If you really want something, you can achieve it.”

Have the right attitude and the world is your oyster, said Sirieix. He cites the example of a Brazilian who arrived three years ago unable to speak a word of English but became a head waiter simply because he was willing to work hard. Sirieix himself started as a kitchen porter when he was 14. Nowadays he works a civilised five-day week and, although he is coy about exactly what he earns, he says it is “well paid”.

The money, it is generally acknowledged, is not bad once you start moving up the ranks – head waiters can earn £25,000- £30,000 and hotel managers £150,000-£250,000. Then there are the opportunities for travel – you can work anywhere in the world, provided you are prepared to learn languages. And the industry will continue to grow – at a rate of 4% a year for the next decade, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council.

Do you need to study to get to the top? You don’t need a qualification to enter the industry but increasingly there are options to study. Many business schools offer hospitality MBAs and there are also more practical courses that allow students to work as well as learn.

At the Palazzo Versace on Australia’s Gold Coast, for example, students can study for a diploma in hospitality while working in the hotel to supplement the cost of the course, which is £8,800 for the year. “There is a requirement of theory but there is also a requirement of practice,” said Frank Lippi, human-resources manager at the hotel. “You can’t have one without the other.”

In Britain, Westminster Kingsway lines up work experience for its students in London’s hotels and restaurants. “College gives you the opportunity to mature and takes the mystery out of what you are going to hit in the industry. It gives you the time to make mistakes and develop confidence without thinking ‘am I going to lose my job if I get this wrong’,” said Booth.

“At the end of the day, an employer has to make a business work and there’s not an awful lot of room for error.”

Jens Moesker, general manager of the soon-to-open Shangri-La Villingili Resort and Spa in the Maldives, agrees. “Most people today would expect a hotel school background; there are fewer and fewer people who work their way up.”

He started his career as a waiter on the QE2, however, and said that there were benefits in starting at the bottom. “Much of the business is about business – but it is still important the tables are set correctly and the flowers are right.”

Hotels and restaurants are cottoning on to the idea of official training, though. The Hilton group now requires staff to complete e-learning courses; they are then audited and if they haven’t completed a certain course, may not get their bonus.

However, ultimately the hospitality business is all about people. “Look after them,” said Sirieix, “and give them what they come to get. We cater for people’s basic needs – eating, drinking and maybe a bit of love. Understand that and you will get it.”

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